a) It's purely character - driven unlike all the hobbit trailers except the first AUJ Teaser. I find Bilbo, Thorin and Dwalin especially engaging.b) it sets up the plot of the film clearly. Thorin's descent into madness and the race to capture the mountain.c) The Nazgul. look so much better than LotR!d) The CGI looks relatively better compared to the DOS and AUJ trailers, and isn't overexposed either.

Overall, I have a strong feeling, that this will be the best of the three.

Gungnir wrote:I watched it with my wife. When Legolas said 'These bats were bred with one purpose', both of us said, 'To destroy the world of men!'

Which means two things... (1) we have both watched LOTR too many times and (2) PJ's scriptwriting team have a limited vocabulary.

Well, if it took you 2 movies and 6 trailers to figure that out...*

Other than that, the trailer looked OK I suppose but Bilbo was an almost incidental character again. Message to PJ - the book was called 'The Hobbit' not 'The Dwarf'.

I guess that's because that's the way it was in the book? The main point here is greed and pride, and how humility can overcome them. Which is quite transparently expressed here, given Bilbo's words and a few others', I guess.Though I'm quite confused by this common idea of lesser screentime = lesser character.

I too thought it looked really good. Just from the trailer you get the a sense of, "You idiots, you're on the SAME SIDE! Stop fighting each other!" The fight with the Necromancer should be interesting. I don't know if I'll like it, but it should definitely be interesting.

I too love the trailer, but I can't help imagining Saruman saying "I'll wave my staff at you and you duck behind a rock. I'll call you later on the Palantir! Mkay?"

Well we do know from the LOTR novel that they were able to drive The Necromancer/Sauron out of Dol Guldur with a device of Saruman . While I think it's more likely Saruman will simply use magic against Sauron rather than any device in the movie I don't doubt that he will battle Sauron and win .

I too love the trailer, but I can't help imagining Saruman saying "I'll wave my staff at you and you duck behind a rock. I'll call you later on the Palantir! Mkay?"

Well we do know from the LOTR novel that they were able to drive The Necromancer/Sauron out of Dol Guldur with a device of Saruman . While I think it's more likely Saruman will simply use magic against Sauron rather than any device in the movie I don't doubt that he will battle Sauron and win .

Given that in PJ's words Galadriel will "kick Sauron's arse a little bit" I would have some doubt about how that Saruman confrontation pans out. Clearly Elrond is not idle either. And who deals with the Nazgul? I think this will be very much a joint council effort in the end product.

Given that in PJ's words Galadriel will "kick Sauron's arse a little bit" I would have some doubt about how that Saruman confrontation pans out. Clearly Elrond is not idle either. And who deals with the Nazgul? I think this will be very much a joint council effort in the end product.

Yeah maybe it will be . And we do know that Sauron was expecting this attack ( in Tolkien's writing anyway ) and will flee because he's got Baradur all ready in Mordor .

Im really looking forward to the white counsel facing off against sauron. But I just noticed the nazgul surrounding Gandalf and galadriel lol. And have yall seen the deleted scenes from the desolation of smaug? There's one where Gandalf finds Thrain in dol guldur. If you haven't seen it look it up on Youtube its epic

In the various trailers, I see an ENORMOUS army in front of Erebor. I can't tell who it is, but I did not get the impression of an army that vast and that uniform from the book. Since there are only 13 people in Erebor (10 in the movie) I do not see the point of that large and uniform an army. If PJ is trying to make BoFA as dramatic as The battle at the end of ROTK, it is a bad and unoriginal idea.Since Legolas has been involved before, I suppose it would seem strange to leave him out, but he is not necessary to the story and I wonder what Thranuil's attitude is.

I'm not sure what army you are referring to from the trailers, but in the book, there is an army of Elves from Mirkwood, one of men from Laketown, and an army of Dwarves from the Iron Hills, in addition to the army of Orcs/Goblins and their Warg allies that show up, resulting in the former all combining against them (along with the later appearing Eagles and Beorn). I'm not sure what your issue is.

There is a shot of a very large, very uniform army in front of Erebor. It is a fast shot, but certainly gives the impression of a well-organized army of great size. The Elves might be that organized, but I never got the idea from the book that there were that many elves in Mirkwood. As for the other armies, I can't see any of them being that uniform, organized, standing in perfect ranks and not counting so many members.Besides, there are only 13 (or 10) Dwarves in Erebor, so why so many ranked against them? Even after the re-alignment of sides, an army that large would be unlikely. PJ has lost the thread of what this story is about--at least as far as the size of the armies. The story is about Thorin and Bilbo, the size of the armies is barely relevant.

I think it has been clear from film 1 that PJ has raised the stakes much higher for these films than in the book, by trying to connect it to LotR. So it's barely a surprise that the armies are larger than in the book. (just as Smaug is bigger than he ought to be, the treasure is bigger than it ought to be, the orcs are bigger than they ought to be ...)

I'm not sure which screen cap you're talking about exactly, but I might add that there a number of shots of a huge, organized army at Mount Gundabad in the trailer too.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that while the BOFA will be much more extravagant than in the book, it won't be as grand as Pelennor - which seems to be confirmed by a guy someplace else who has already seen the unfinished cut of BOFA.

portia wrote: The story is about Thorin and Bilbo, the size of the armies is barely relevant.

In the book (and perhaps in the film, we don't know yet), the army that marches with Thranduil has nothing to do with the 13 dwarves of the company; Thranduil thinks that that they are dead. But he certainly does march with a large army, not because of Thorin and his company, but because of the large treasure that he thinks they have left behind:

"That will be the last we shall hear of Thorin Oakenshield, I fear," said the king. "He would have done better to have remained my guest. It is an ill wind, all the same," he added, "that blows no one any good." For he too had not forgotten the legend of the wealth of Thror. So it was that Bard's messengers found him now marching with many spearmen and bowmen; and crows were gathered thick, above him, for they thought that war was awakening again, such as had not been in those parts for a long age.

It certainly is true that Jackson has raised the ultimate stakes from what is in the book, since he makes it explicit that the Orc armies that they ultimately fight were sent by Sauron, but to the extent that we have a seen a large, well-organized army of Elves, that is perfectly consistent with the book.

I agree with ngaur on that. If each person in the army carries a bag of gold, or that amount is put on carts, it will take a very large army to transfer it.

As to PJ apparent efforts to make this fight part of his takeover efforts, I do not buy it, beyond the limited idea that if the dragon, or the Goblins, take the area, Sauron will not have to worry about the North. But I didn't get the idea from LOTR that he worried about the North, anyway. From a marketing point of view, there is some reason to the effort, but not from the story. PJ may have become convinced that he had to inflate the storyline to attract customers. He might be right, but a lot is lost by that effort, IMO.

portia wrote:As to PJ apparent efforts to make this fight part of his takeover efforts, I do not buy it, beyond the limited idea that if the dragon, or the Goblins, take the area, Sauron will not have to worry about the North. But I didn't get the idea from LOTR that he worried about the North, anyway. From a marketing point of view, there is some reason to the effort, but not from the story. PJ may have become convinced that he had to inflate the storyline to attract customers. He might be right, but a lot is lost by that effort, IMO.

I pretty much agree with this, word for word.

solicitr wrote:Barf.

Lovely to see that your ability to express yourself courteously and intelligently has remained consistent.

As was observed by a poster on another forum, "If only the rest of the featured lines approached this level of inspired lunacy, but no, once again they’re courtesy of the Hack-O-Matic Dialogue Generator™. You can barely even make fun of this stuff."

Voronwe wrote:Lovely to see that your ability to express yourself courteously and intelligently has remained consistent.

I tried courteous and intelligent- it didn't do any good. Those who have convinced themselves that the Emperor's wardrobe is splendid simply will not allow themselves to perceive that in fact His Majesty is prancing around in a rather dingy pair of BVD's. Even PJ's descent in this third movie (let's focus everything on the Big Battle!) into utter fan-fic, at a sub-Eddings, near-Dragonlance level, won't open their eyes.

I will confess that when I saw some of the TV spots that have been airing lately for the film, I initially took them for advertisements for a video game tie-in. Not just because of the video game-like action, which is regrettable, but also because the special effects had more of a video game quality than a feature Hollywood film quality. Maybe they were just unfinished shots for the TV spots?

To put it bluntly: it looks terrible. Same old visuals, same old direction technics, same old dialogues, same old Legolas stupidities, same old violence, same old obsession with orcs and monsters, with the ugliness of the world, whereas in Tolkien's view, the monsters were also a metaphorical presence, represented somethinge else (a perversion, a lack of good, a despair, etc.). PJ has found a recipe in FOTR and has applied it since in every one of his Tolkien movies, each time with less inspiration and success, each time with an increasing lack of understanding of Tolkien's themes and viewpoints, and each time with images and lighting that look more and more like a video game. Poor Tolkien. PJ is now climbing a mountain of cheesiness and is getting higher and higher. Will BOFTA be the summit of his Mount Doom?